by Kevin Burton Surely you’ve heard this old joke: What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks only one language? American. A wicked, sweeping generalization that. Not entirely fair. But …
Tag Archives: Spanish
My Bilingual Doubletalk In Mexico
by Kevin Burton My career as an English as a Second Language teacher came to an abrupt early end one night under the streetlights outside a small taco shop in Puebla. To tell you how and why that happened, I first turn to BBC writer Nicole Chang, who recently wrote about what speaking …
A Week To Show Appreciation To Teachers
by Kevin Burton One of the things I said I would never do, is teach. I thought there might be some payback coming. I reasoned that if I got back anything close to my just desserts after tormenting my teachers for so long, I’d be in serious trouble. May 2-5 is National Teacher …
American Emigration Over The Years
by Kevin Burton It is conventional wisdom in the United States that a US passport is the prized possession. It would be foolish to downplay the benefits of American citizenship to many who live here. But for some it may be wise to at least look into what some other places may have …
Why People Are Leaving The USA
by Kevin Burton Leaving your home country is a foreign concept that pushes against everything you have known from earliest childhood. At least for Americans it is. What set of circumstances would cause you to think about relocating permanently? Wednesday we told one woman’s story. Amber Blackmon moved from the United …
Could You Leave The United States?
by Kevin Burton Amber Blackmon told her story Monday on insider.com, I wish she had told more of it. Or maybe it’s better this way. Maybe we are meant to insert our own details into what she has given. The story hit home because she did something I sort of did years …
Updates: Page 7’s Mexican Debut
by Kevin Burton Within my general and ongoing shameless plea for readership, I got specific two months ago. On the occasion of Mexican Independence Day I lamented that nobody in Mexico had ever read Page 7 (“Happy Birthday Mexico, Please Read This,” Sept. 15). That hurts, because I used to live in Mexico. …
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